Let's pool our knowledge: D&D helps D&D Debate and Discuss

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TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

How would you debate someone who agrees with Paul Ryan, that we need to make the poor's life harder by cutting welfare programs? As in even if it makes everyone poorer in the medium/long run, we should do it so we can punish the poor.

It's mostly atheists making this claim, so appealing to Jesus won't sway them.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2012 18:46

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:22

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

baw posted:

Listen until he says something demonstrably wrong, demonstrate it is wrong, and do that with two or three statements. At that point you've discredited the video and you (hopefully) don't have to watch the whole thing.

Ask him if he thinks people are on welfare because they are lazy or because they can't find work. If he says both, as for specific proportions. If he says they are lazy, ask him why several million Americans became spontaneously lazy in late 2008. If he says they are on welfare because they genuinely can't find work, then lol jk he won't say that

"Lots of people who didn't deserve to be working were holding jobs before the crash, now they suffer as they should. Some people just don't deserve to live."

How do you argue against that poo poo?

# ¿ Mar 21, 2012 19:13

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Anybody got any good sources on the declining marginal value of money? I'd like an authoritative source on the issue and Google is only turning up Yahoo Answers and the like both in support and opposition to the idea.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2012 03:07

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

One thing that I've been struggling with for a while, is how to make the case for food assistance/housing assistance to the poor to someone like Ebenezer Scrooge. Making them care about the poor's suffering is impossible, but if the case could be made that providing assistance benefits the not-poor somehow, then we could improve our safety net.

I'm aware convincing Objectivists of this is impossible, but what arguments could work with people who don't hate the poor as a religious imperative?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 20:37

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

namesake posted:

They are less likely to kill you in their search for food.

So we're essentially bribing people with food? That may work, as food is much less expensive than prison. Any reason why it shouldn't be more than three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Sundays? Why should people be forced to give up their money so poor people can eat above starvation from a Libertarian perspective?

OwlBot 2000 posted:

I'm not convinced they can be convinced -- the short-term monetary interests of the rich trump all other considerations, from world hunger to climate change to future profitability. People like Ebeneezer Scrooge will always be in the way and will eventually need to be steamrolled over on the way to progress.

But if you wanted to make a "self-interest" argument to such people it's that the poor can't buy whatever the Scrooges of the world are making and selling if they can't afford food and rent. Right now the recession is demand-driven, because the middle class (in reality there are only two classes, but when talking to normal people you can say "middle class") doesn't have enough disposable income to buy consumer goods.

Any sources on this?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2013 21:04

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

One argument that I hear ad nauseum about working in the US whenever somebody mentions that 60-80 hour work weeks aren't the bestest thing ever:

quote:

What gives you the right to steal from productive members of society just because you can't make enough money to afford an apartment and the like? What justifies the filthy poor taking what they can't make for themselves? There's soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and (most importantly) prisons, so they won't freeze or starve!

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 14:36

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Certainly there's arguments against a 60-hour week other than full-tilt Marxist "Kill the Rich" rhetoric. I don't know where you guys are arguing from, but any argument that could be construed as Marxist where I live will have everybody disagreeing immediately. These people would literally rather kill themselves than admit they benefit in any part from Marxist thought.

Perhaps a better question, is there a way to argue that people working 60 hours per week is bad even for the people who don't have to work so much to afford the basics? The people I'm arguing with hate the poor, and anything that makes their life better is evidence against my argument, not for it.

EDIT: Perhaps a more succinct way of putting this. What's a good way to argue for helping the poor become not-poor to people who hate the poor?

TwoQuestions fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Feb 11, 2014

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 15:39

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

rscott posted:

You can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into in the first case. If they literally hate the poor and are using rhetoric like stealing from productive members of society you're probably going to wind up just beating your head against a brick wall.

However, if they are willing to listen to actual facts and the like, The Spirit Level contains tons of studies and that show that increased inequality leads to objectively worse outcomes for every cohort of society except for the wealthiest.

Thank you much, I'll look into that! That's exactly what I was looking for!

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 16:59

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

rscott posted:

We are fundamentally opposed to the purpose of a thread like this then. If someone is unwilling to prove their positive assertions then you aren't going to change their mind. I'm not saying you have to be all rationalwiki and lay down your trump card and be all about it. I've had a fair bit of success with just asking people why they believe what they do. Oftentimes they'll say something like common sense or some other justification that That Is Just How Things Work. In that case I say something like, "well if it's common sense or if it's that self evident then finding some kind of evidence or something should be really easy right?" If they don't have anything right on hand that they can offer up I'll drop it for a few days/a week until it comes up again, and keep gently hammering that point of empirical evidence, empirical evidence, empirical evidence. It doesn't work with everyone, especially older people but I have objectively changed the opinions of at least a half a dozen people on welfare fraud using this technique.

One important thing to remember about contemporary mainline Republicans is that the like white not-poor Protestants, and hate everyone else. Poor people, ethnic minorities, religious minorities all must suffer, and any policy that benefits them is morally wrong. That's why they're so against food stamps existing for example, is because it benefits poor people a lot without inflicting pain or misery of any kind. Never mind it's a subsidy towards the food industry and reduces crime for a pittance, better to spend ten times that on prisons so the undesirables are in sufficient misery for not being Us.

Unless something you're arguing for satisfies their unquenchable malice and hatred for People Not Like Us, you'll never get through.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 15:48

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

I'm sorry if this was already discussed earlier, but how do you debate with someone with actively malicious views? For example, someone who wants prison to be harder because "those fuckers deserve it", or someone who wants to cut public education not because it will save them money, but because things were hard for them so it should be hard for everybody.

If someone would rather live in a tent roasting sparrows on a wire hanger as long as everyone else either didn't have a hanger or sparrows to roast on it, how do you convince them of decent policy?

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 15:13

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Dr. Arbitrary posted:

I don't think you can be because he's arguing from an intellectually honest position. That's okay though because most people will find that position morally reprehensible so he's basically making your argument for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepQF7G-It0

You'd be wrong. The malicious are too numerous to simply dismiss. Most Americans just want to see everyone suffer, justified or not. Better 100 innocent people be executed than a single shoplifter go unpunished.

EDIT: for clarity

TwoQuestions fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Feb 12, 2015

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 18:10

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Because that's how most people think in America, and it's the default position of anyone you'll talk to, and it's not that stupid. If you make everyone else's life bad enough, yours look good by comparison, and it's easier than improving your own life.

People hate other people, that's all there is to it.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2015 19:03

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

EvanSchenck posted:

Wait, are you talking about an individual person you actually know, or are you generalizing about Americans writ large? I thought you were directly quoting or paraphrasing an intransigent friend of yours whom you'd actually tried and failed to convince, which is why I specified "his position as you describe it." If you're drawing generalizations, then I just don't agree with your premise. A fair number of people will express ideas like that off the cuff but the depth of their support is as shallow as their reasoning. There's a few ways to get a better response.

First, talk to a person individually. The people in the video you posted expressed those rotten opinions because they knew they were surrounded by like-minded people. This reinforces their sense that they are right, makes them feel more secure in rejecting contrary arguments without even considering them), and makes them feel insecure about reversing themselves. So try to discuss things on a personal level, one-on-one.

Second, begin by making it clear that you respect their opinion and try to find a common starting point. For example, with respect to prisons, start by getting them to agree that the justice system should protect people from crime. Then move on to the proposition that prisons should protect citizens from crime, by separating offenders and discouraging them from committing crimes in the future. Or to take the example of health care, get them to agree that health care systems should get good medical outcomes while being economically efficient.

Third, present your evidence, emphasizing the fact that it's credible and unbiased. Rehabilitation works, punitive measures don't. Universal health care has better outcomes and is cheaper than fully privatized systems. Both are slam dunks, all the evidence points that way.

Fourth, be okay with it if this doesn't work at any point. Maybe you can't even start to talk to them because they're such assholes that they won't listen. Maybe they'll spitefully refuse any attempt to find common ground. Maybe they'll refuse to believe your evidence simply because they don't want to. In any case you can't knock over a brick wall by arguing with it. But getting angry makes it worse, and a position like yours--"it's useless to argue because people generally are just spiteful and mean"--isn't true and has no value as an explanation of anything. It is, frankly, an excuse to avoid talking to people who disagree with you, while still feeling superior to them.

Here's a more specific one then:

"I'm a veteran, and therefore deserve better medical care than non-veterans. Unless a policy explicitly gives me better outcomes than everyone else, I'll oppose it even if I get better outcomes too."

How do you argue with that?

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 15:22

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

Joke answer: The VA is exactly equivalent to socialist Europe's dirty and broken healthcare system and you're a communist by the transitive property.

So? Socialism is okay when it benefits me. It's when it benefits those filthy civvy moochers is when it's wrong.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 15:36

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

EvanSchenck posted:

Work on the contradiction between that position and volunteering for military service. At some point this person made an affirmative decision to sacrifice his own safety and comfort in service to the common good (theoretically, anyway), so why has he reversed himself after mustering out?

But again, are you quoting somebody you've actually talked to, or are you paraphrasing what you take to be a generic American conservative position? If it's the latter, it would be more productive to discuss how you formed that. Notwithstanding Mark Ames's "We the Spiteful" essay, the politics of resentment isn't a final or all-encompassing explanation. It's definitely there but it isn't the whole thing. If you pay attention to the way they talk to one another, merely saying "gently caress anybody who's different" is sufficient for only a hardcore minority. It gets play on Stormfront, not Fox News. Most people want to at least feel like they're basing their worldview on something real, which is why there's a whole huge industry set up to produce arguments and sources for consumption by conservatives. It's largely specious, of course. But the fact is there's real demand for bullshit like the Laffer Curve (just as one example), and that's a start, because it shows that people aren't just saying "gently caress the poor", they also want to believe that lowering taxes on the rich is good policy. This is your point of entry.

Now, a great deal of the time it's simply not going to work. Being wrong and consequently having to revise your opinions is uncomfortable, and people want to avoid that. Usually they'll just ignore evidence that contradicts their worldview, or they'll aggressively reject it and redouble their commitment to being wrong. That's life. But you can succeed sometimes, and it's worth the effort to try.

The argument I quoted was real, but I'll keep the second paragraph in mind.

I gotta stay the hell out of the Freep thread for a while.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2015 22:33

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

The real reason for opposition to food stamps/welfare is that you should have to work in order to live, and the only reason you can't work enough to survive is because you're lazy. Every red cent going to subsidize the lazy is theft and therefore sin, and the world would be a better, more moral place if everybody on welfare suddenly dropped dead. "Those who won't work shall not eat." To have all that tax money go to RIck Scott's company is more moral than feeding the poor. They're all lazy fuckers and deserve to die anyway.

The above is a conservative absolute, and no amount of examples or rhetoric will convince people otherwise.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 16:51

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

wateroverfire posted:

Alternately: Many people believe public assistance should be conditional, and/or that public money should be used carefully, and/or that paying people for doing nothing is in general bad policy.

For most, those conditions boil down to "Be a close friend or family member of mine". Everyone else is a bunch of worthless leeches.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 17:32

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Cognac McCarthy posted:

Great factual arguments.

These look like a great way to convince someone who's a victim of bad data, but I doubt its effectiveness in dispelling full-tilt hatred. If you're trying to convince a Freeper that not all Muslims are terrorists, all the hard evidence in the world won't matter at all.

TBH I'm not sure of the best way to argue against undiluted hatred.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2015 01:04

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Parallel Paraplegic posted:

You could point out that even a dirty ~liberal arts~ major teaches you how to think in general more than not-college and that improves the nation as a whole due to a more informed electorate, generally better-educated populace, etc.

He won't buy this though, so you could also point out that if poor people don't get some kind of post-secondary training (even ~liberal arts~) they're more likely to wind up on long-term unemployment or in a low-paying job that's subsidized by government money and healthcare (like Wal-Mart), and that costs the country (and him) more tax dollars in the long run since now instead of a fraction of his money going towards one single payment of $20k worth of community college money and loans or whatever, a bigger fraction of his money is going towards completely replacing all of the tax money that is not being paid into the system by that person plus the money it costs to keep them alive for the rest of their lives.

Stealing from productive people to keep lazy people above the brink of death is wrong too, in the conservative view. The poor/lazy deserve to be sleeping under bridges at the brink of starvation, and deserve no protection from the state that they don't contribute to. Anything more is immoral.

# ¿ May 28, 2015 21:36

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# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 05:22

TwoQuestions: Aug 26, 2011

Are there any good histories of contemporary Israel out there? Most people in my area agree with Free Republic that all Arabs within a thousand miles of Jerusalem are in some sort of Tyranid-like hive mind whose sole purpose is to destroy the state of Israel, and I find myself without hard facts to refute it.

I tried asking in the I/P thread, but I should have known that was a bad idea.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 14:08

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